4th Grade to the Kansas Underground Salt Museum
On Tuesday, May 12, 2015 the Argonia 4th grade traveled to the Kansas Underground Salt Museum in Hutchinson. Everyone was quite excited to go down and experience something that not everyone can say that they have done! Our awesome tour guide was very engaging and taught us many interesting facts about salt, salt mining, and geology. He took us through the general tour of the salt museum that anyone can experience. We learned about how the salt was mined in the past and how it is mined today. We also got to see old mining equipment that they used in the past. He showed us other interesting artifacts that can be found in the mine. Most of it looks like trash but we learned that it’s considered an artifact. Most of the trash found is from the past and they use that trash to study the history of the mine and the way things were done in the past. Once we were finished with the general tour of the museum, we got to go where only school groups were allowed to go. We went on what is called the dark walk! Everyone got a flashlight and we got to walk farther into the mine and see more interesting things about the mine. After walking for awhile in the dark we each got to pick out a piece of salt to take home as a souvenir! To finish our tour we got to walk through the part of the museum that looks like the underground vaults and storage part of the salt mine. We got to see many movie props, costumes, and other artifacts such as a newspaper from 1865 reporting on the assassination of President Lincoln. I do believe everyone had an excellent experience and learned something new! I have been several times and I know I learned several new things. We would like to thank PTO for paying for this awesome field trip! The 4th graders attending were Brenna Booker, Abigail Harbin, Emily Kesinger, Aidan Kollmeyer, Brooke Love, Whyatt Owens, Jed Phillips, Ryder Ragan, Bella Robinson, Damien Smith, and Wesley Weishaar.
